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Godzilla
Godzilla (ゴジラ Gojira) is a daikaiju who first appeared in the 1954 Toho film, Godzilla. The primary focus of his franchise, Godzilla is typically depicted as a giant prehistoric creature awakened or mutated by the advent of the nuclear age. For the early part of the Showa series of films, Godzilla was depicted as a villainous and destructive force of nature, punishing humankind for its use of nuclear weapons, which disturbed and burned him. Over the remainder of the series, Godzilla gradually developed into a heroic character, defending Japan by fending off other more malevolent creatures such as King Ghidorah, many of them extraterrestrial or controlled by extraterrestrials. When Toho revived the franchise in 1984 with The Return of Godzilla, ignoring every film in the series except the original, Godzilla became a menace to Japan and the world once more. The Heisei series saw Godzilla battle some of his foes from the Showa era, such as Mothra and Mechagodzilla, as well as new monsters like Biollante and Destoroyah. Despite his destructive tendencies, this Godzilla incidentally saved humanity from greater evils on occasion. The Heisei series was followed by the Millennium series, an anthology in which nearly every film took place in its own continuity, often connected in some way only to the original 1954 film. Godzilla was often the villain in these films, though in some he was instead an anti-hero similar to the Heisei series. 12 years after the end of the Millennium series, Toho rebooted the franchise again with Shin Godzilla, a completely standalone film in which Godzilla appeared for the first time in modern-day Japan. This Godzilla was a bizarre new species spawned by the dumping of nuclear waste in Tokyo Bay in the 1950's, with the capacity to adapt to any situation by spontaneously mutating his own DNA. Toho introduced a new continuity the following year with the GODZILLA anime trilogy, in which Godzilla successfully drove humanity from the Earth in 2048 and reshaped the planet in his own image over the next 20,000 years. When refugees from the Aratrum returned to reclaim the planet, they were faced with a Godzilla that had continuously grown and evolved and reached a height of over 300 meters. Outside of the 34 films produced by Toho, Godzilla has starred in three Hollywood adaptations, with at least one more to come. The first, GODZILLA, was produced by TriStar Pictures in 1998 and became controversial for its radical reinterpretation of the character, which was now an iguana mutated by nuclear testing rather than a prehistoric reptile. The TriStar Godzilla also lacked some of the character's signature traits, such as his atomic breath and invulnerability to military weapons, and gained the ability to asexually reproduce. The second Hollywood adaptation of the franchise, Godzilla, was produced in 2014 by Legendary Pictures, and featured a more traditional interpretation of the titular monster. This film marked the beginning of the MonsterVerse, a shared universe of giant monster films produced by Legendary and distributed by Warner Bros., focusing on Godzilla and King Kong. Godzilla has also appeared in Godzilla: King of the Monsters in 2019, and is slated to appear in Godzilla vs. Kong in 2020. Name Godzilla's Japanese name, Gojira (ゴジラ), comes from a combination of the Japanese approximation of "gorilla" (ゴリラ Gorira), and kujira (クジラ), the Japanese word for "whale." The name is said to have been chosen to represent the size and strength of both animals.37 In Shigeru Kayama's story treatment for the original 1954 Godzilla film, Godzilla's name was spelled in katakana as ゴヂラ (Godzira).3839 In the original film, Godzilla's name is originally spelled in kanji as 呉爾羅 by the Odo Island natives, though these characters were chosen for sound only. This kanji spelling of Godzilla's name is also used in Shin Godzilla, where it is said to mean "Incarnation of God" in the dialect of Odo Island, and in GODZILLA: Monster Apocalypse, the official prequel novel to GODZILLA: Planet of the Monsters, where it is said to be the name of a mythological dragon from the island's folklore. Contrary to popular belief, the English name "Godzilla" was not invented by the American distributors of the original film. Before Toho sold the film to U.S. distributors, the company's international division had originally marketed English-subtitled prints of the film under the title of Godzilla, which were shown briefly in Japanese-American theaters. Toho themselves had decided on "Godzilla" as the English transliteration of Gojira. According to the 2002 book Since Godzilla, the English name "Godzilla" produces connotations such as the words "God," "lizard," and "gorilla." The word "God" is applicable to Godzilla because of his immense size and destructive power which causes him to be seen as a god by some, "lizard" is applicable due to Godzilla's reptilian appearance and ties to the time of the dinosaurs, and "gorilla" is applicable due to Godzilla's creation having been inspired by the famous gorilla-like giant monster King Kong. "Godzilla" may be approximated into Japanese as ガッズィラ (Gazzira) or ガッズィーラ (Gazzīra). Design Specific details of Godzilla's appearance have changed between films over the years, but many defining details have endured. In the Japanese films, Godzilla is depicted as a gigantic, bipedal reptilian creature with rough, bumpy, usually charcoal gray scales with a keloid scar or tree bark-like texture, a fairly small head with prominent eyebrow-like ridges over the eyes, moderately long, humanoid arms with four fingers including an opposable thumb, thick, muscular legs, a long, powerful, segmented tail, and three rows of generally bone-white dorsal fins, usually shaped like maple leaves, though there are some designs whose traits may differ. Godzilla origins vary somewhat from film to film, but he is almost always described as a prehistoric creature, and his first attacks on Japan are linked to the beginning of the Atomic Age. In particular, mutation due to atomic radiation is presented as an explanation for his great size and strange powers. Godzilla's iconic design is often said to be composed of a mixture of traits from various species of dinosaurs. To be specific, he has the body and overall shape of a pre-1990's reconstruction of a Tyrannosaurus rex or Allosaurus, the long arms and "thumbs" of an Iguanodon, and the dorsal plates of a Stegosaurus. Personality Godzilla, in the original Godzilla, is a creature whose underwater habitat was completely destroyed by a hydrogen bomb test which also killed his family and burned and scarred him. Enraged and driven from his home, Godzilla took out his rage upon humanity, destroying any boats that he encountered and later laying waste to the city of Tokyo.41 In the subsequent films of the early Showa era, the Heisei era, some of the Millennium era and Legendary Pictures' Godzilla, Godzilla is an animal with at least semi-sapience that stumbles upon human civilization without any malicious intent, only destroying man-made structures or obstacles like buildings when the humans provoke him, or, when dead-set on arriving at a certain location. In Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, Godzilla is a malicious entity created from the restless souls of the dead from World War II. As the Godzilla series continued into the 1960's and 1970's, the terrifying monster developed as a character, and has since become a savior of the Earth, saving the world from other monsters like King Ghidorah, Hedorah, the Showa Mechagodzilla, and Monster X, alone or alongside other monsters like Rodan, Anguirus, and Mothra. According to Mothra's Shobijin's translation of Mothra, Rodan and Godzilla's conversation in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, Godzilla only "hates humans because they hate him," suggesting that Godzilla never had any true malicious intent but was only reacting to constantly being attacked by humans. Rodan later agrees with Godzilla's statement. In Legendary Pictures' Godzilla, Godzilla's behavior seems to be that of a territorial animal. Ishiro Serizawa theorized that this Godzilla is the driving force to restore balance to nature whenever that balance is disrupted, suggesting that he essentially considers the entire Earth to be his territory. However, unlike previous incarnations, he doesn't blatantly attack or plow through ships at sea simply because they are there. In fact, with larger ships like aircraft carriers, he simply dove down under them. Even when he was attacked by the military, he didn't noticeably react or fight back and simply continued to hunt the MUTOs, even when he was being followed in close proximity by four naval ships. He also does not seem to intentionally cause destruction. Even when he destroyed the Golden Gate Bridge, it did not appear to be intentional, but rather just him reacting from being hit in the gills by missile fire. He shows little interest in humans, instead focusing his attention entirely on the MUTOs. After defeating both MUTOs, he leaves the humans alone without any more conflict. In Shin Godzilla, Godzilla is somewhat passive and unaware of humanity at first, only causing destruction at first due to the cumbersome and clumsy nature of his earlier forms, then later as a result of his final form's size as he walks through Tokyo. Godzilla does not retaliate against the JSDF when they attack him, and seems to barely notice their assault. However, when American B-2 Stealth Bombers drop Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bombs onto his back and actually injure him, Godzilla becomes enraged and immediately retaliates with his atomic breath, not only destroying the attacking forces but obliterating a huge part of Tokyo at the same time. When Godzilla is assaulted at the film's climax, he retaliates against the humans using his atomic breath and various beam attacks. In the GODZILLA anime trilogy, Godzilla is an incredibly aggressive creature who seems to deliberately seek out and destroy human civilization as well as other monsters. Shortly after Kyohei Yamane proposed his existence on Odo Island in 2038, Godzilla made landfall in the United States and immediately obliterated the city of Los Angeles along with the monsters Anguirus IV, Baragon II, and Varan II. Godzilla traveled the globe in the ensuing years, bringing human civilization to its knees and resisting all attempts to destroy him. Even after refugees of humanity returned to the planet after 20,000 years, Godzilla attacked them on sight. Despite being a seemingly emotionless and impersonal force of destruction, characters noted that Godzilla's eerily human-like eyes appeared to denote both awareness and intelligence. Godzilla also defends the Earth from potential threats, solely in the interest of his own survival. In the 21st century, he detected the approach of the Gorath asteroid and stored enough energy to destroy it before it struck the planet. 20,000 years later, he fights off Mechagodzilla City and Ghidorah, both of whom would have destroyed the Earth had they successfully killed him.